waterfire

note to self

Don't try to steer out of a parking space while selecting music on your iPod that's hooked by a cord to a tape adaptor in your tape player. You'll probably make a sudden move with your arm, forgetting about the cord, and hook the cord into the space between the rotating and still parts of your steering wheel. Then you'll yank the cord around to find where it's stuck, accidentally flipping random controls surrounding your steering wheel so your brights glare into the windows of neighboring apartments while your windshield wipers wave frantically.  You'll realize that, similar to a child who has stuck its head into a small space and can't figure out how to get it back out again, the little plug-head on the end of your adaptor cord is now lodged against all logic in the crevice it was small enough to accidentally slip into.  You'll poke and pry and pull at the stubborn little monster, but finally abandon hope and tear off the adaptor cord out of sheer force (and frustration).  The plug-head will clack around inside your steering wheel all the way home and afterward, making you a little suspicious that maybe that's something you should fix-- what if it got stuck and you couldn't turn your wheel?-- and also making you grateful that you discovered an excellent radio station earlier that evening.

thirteen again

I babysat for some friends tonight while they went to a wedding.  It's just funny how in the midst of all this change-- just one example of which is that I'm taking care of my friend's baby-- some things remain laughably the same.  

When I came over, their little one-year-old was already tugging her hair and balling tired fists up into her eyes.  We played a little peek-a-boo, a little tug-at-Lauren's-shirt-and-laugh-'cause-it's-funny, and a little beginner's pat-a-cake, all punctuated by more eye-rubbing and hair-pulling.  Hyphenated games and sleepiness indicators: check.

The end of game time might have been unfortunate had it not been for a little sippy cup of baby heaven sitting in the fridge.  As I held a paper towel under her chin, she guzzled her whole milk in long, powerful draws, making her dad's summary-- "She likes to knock back a cold one before bed"-- seem pretty darn accurate.  This girl likes her whole milk.  So, baby hits the bottle before passing out:  check.  

After winding up her musical mobile and tiptoeing out of her room, I entered real babysitter land: post-bedtime freedom.  (Not that this baby is a lot to contend with, but just for drama's sake, I'll pretend it was important.)  So why does it seem so much more appealing to watch TV in someone else's house than in my own?  Was it the thirteen-year-old babysitter in me reviving, or just the contrast to the feeling that when I'm home, I should be doing something more productive?  That need to be productive might have succeeded in making me feel older again, if it wasn't for-- what was on TV?--  The Wedding Singer, release date 1998.  The year when I was thirteen.  Sluggardly TV watching: check.

So really, once the TV was on and I was successfully ignoring most of the things I had planned on doing in my free time, there was only one thing lacking to make me feel like a real, live babysitter again.  Did they have any yummy food?

Most of the stuff in my pantry at home is boring unless you have at least half an hour on your hands, after which time you could end up with some pretty yummy home-baked treats (or rice pilaf).  Then again, I haven't looked at it with babysitter eyes.  A babysitter can make something out of nothing if forced.

But this is what happened.  I looked in my friends' pantry-- stocked responsibly with good, healthy foods and not overly much of them-- and I couldn't use my babysitterly creativity.  I couldn't smother their Mini-Wheats with spoonfuls of peanut butter and wash them down with popcorn.  I couldn't make a second dinner of pieroghis and dutch cocoa cookies with a tall glass of milk on the side.  These were my friends.  They worked hard to pay for their food.  And a lot of the packages weren't open yet.

So the metamorphosis reversed.   I went back to the living room with a tall glass of water and two cinnamon graham crackers in hand, munching peacefully.  I'd rather be a 24-year-old with responsibilities and questions and a sense of love for my close friends and the lives they're building than a thirteen-year-old finishing a fresh sleeve of frozen Thin Mints.  That deeper recognition-- even if it comes out when I'm looking for junk food in a friend's pantry-- that's something new.

life,the question

"

solemnly

myselves

ask "life,the question how do i drink dream smile

and how do i prefer this face to another and

why do i weep eat sleep--what does the whole intend"

they wonder.   oh and they cry "to be,being,that i am alive

this absurd fraction in its lowest terms

with everything cancelled

but shadows

--what does it all come down to?   

"

e.e. cummings

gratitude

It was one of those mornings when I woke up gritting my teeth against the day.  Grimaced down the stairs, out to my car, and all the way into work.  Forgot to wish a coworker a happy birthday.  Grumbled about the sink in my area being so far away from the microwave (horror of horrors).  Re-ran over my list of personal failings, including why focusing on my personal failings is a bad thing to do.  Not a happy morning.

Then I met with a friend who decided to start her blog today.  (I wish it wasn't on our secure work site, because I would love to link to it here...it's going to be great.)  It's called "Thank You Beaucoup!" (love the exclam!) and it's going to be about things she's grateful for each day.  

Today, I just want to say I'm grateful for her.  I'm grateful for her friendship and her honesty, her strength and loyalty, her sense of humor and sense of justice.  What she shared with me on her post (about our lunch yesterday) was just a hint of what she has shared with me throughout our friendship.  

I'm really grateful.  Thank you.  And please, take all the croutons you want. ;)

roots

"The farther the outward journey takes you, the deeper the inward journey must be.  Only when your roots are deep can your fruits be abundant."  - Henri Nouwen

I did a pencil drawing of a tree a little over a week ago, out of nowhere-- I was just reading and then felt like drawing, so I drew a tree.  And thinking it was a pretty fine-looking tree, for being drawn just from my head, I started looking at the drawing from different angles.  I turned it upside-down and noticed that what had once been the branches also made decent-looking roots (although they grasped the earth more deeply than the former roots) and the roots from before made okay, but kind of shallow or broad, branches.  

Then, a few days later, I picked up the drawing again and thought there must be some kind of metaphor about a tree's symmetrical shape.  I don't know why I couldn't think of it at the time, but now it seems really obvious.

What Nouwen describes is two journeys that mirror each other-- one outward, and one inward.  I am on both those journeys.  And in searching myself-- I've been thinking a lot about this blog lately, and how who I am, or my root structure, has to determine how I use it-- I'm finding that to grow, I may need equally as much not to share as to share-- or to find a balance between the two.  To learn where the ground is between the branches and the roots.  

These are significant things to learn for me.  

In this time when we're growing so much, a blog is at risk of letting the outward journey take on a semblance of an inward one-- as in sharing what is not yet part of the root structure-- or of exposing the inward journey, trying to find its value by making it outwardly visible.  I struggle with this a lot.  There is a lot I'd like to say, a lot I'd like for people to know about me-- sometimes disclaimers, sometimes fears, sometimes hopes.  But somehow when I stretch out my hands with too much of it, I find myself empty.  In wanting to show all of our journey, do we try to uproot ourselves?  Is intimacy, and trust, partly knowing where the ground is?  And trusting what is beneath it?

The nature of roots is that they are hidden in some deep place from which they draw nourishment.  Their strength and structure should be evident in the health of the tree, as it's seen from above ground.  Their strength is inherent in their hiddenness.  

What is unseen is still there.  I trust and hope that others will understand that about me, just as I do about them.  This journey will continue, both outwardly and inwardly.  

Let's dig in deep.

reasons for the season

- morning and evening bike rides

- pumpkin-flavored everything

- just the right book at just the right time

- the warm oranginess of lit windows at night

- the chilly blueness of even the sunniest sky

- trees raining down their crispy leaves

- forgotten memories stirring with distant yearning

- the earth reminds us

(our souls remember)

everything changes

- some music just fits

they're back

Yeah.  The $4.99-per-pound peanut butter-chocolate-rice krispie bricks of heaven at HyVee?  The ones I'd buy way too often and open before I even left the parking lot?  The ones that would end up in crumbles on my passenger seat as I distractedly munched while driving?  The ones that local Amish bakers made with love and care, especially for me?

They're back.  I'm not afraid...yet.  Maybe I should get some of those blinders like the Amish horses.